Star Fire and Snow Glare
by Unrequited Sin
Summary: A moment comes and passes before Kurogane can pin Fye down. Not quite KuroFye.


Title: Star Fire and Snow Glare  
Author: Ashe   
Fandom: Tsubasa Chronicle  
Prompt: Gray LJ challengethe  
Rating/Warnings: PG. M/M.  
Summary: A moment comes and passes before Kurogane can pin Fye down.  
Notes: First attempt at Kuro/Fye. Thus, be nice but don't pull the punches entirely. I like criticism, as long as it's constructive, but I'm definitely still getting a feel for the two of them (especially Kurogane who I can already tell is going to be super hard for me to write). Also falls no where specifically, but obviously an earlier convo between the two.

Story:

Somehow, and Kurogane could not explain it, the wizard always managed to remain pristine white even on the muddiest, most dreary gray days. Even when his companions were soaked to the bone and shivering, dripping wet and muddy, the wizard shone. No, it wasn't that his clothing remained immaculate. They were as prone to soaking through or staining with dirt as any others. And his hair would darken from the pale blonde to a darker, almost brown, when they hung in clumps around his face, so that wasn't it either. Kurogane simply couldn't explain the pale, shining _white_ that seemed to seep from him.

At least, he couldn't explain it at first. Slowly other words would drift to him as he studied the wizard. It was not hard to study him, either. He was not particularly reclusive, and if he noticed the amount of attention that the ninja was paying him, he did not change his behavior to compensate. He still tormented Kurogane with pointless, silly nicknames that drove him to distraction, but in those moments when something or someone else had the wizard's full attention, Kurogane found himself studying him.

At first his eyes only took in the physical. Fye was tall, very slim, almost effeminate. His face was soft, rounded, and his eyes shimmered more than a little in the right light. If the wizard was a little guarded for one who feigned idiocy and clumsiness, then Kurogane could grant him a little leeway for that. But it was precisely that that finally drove the ninja to look deeper. The wizard _wasn't_ as clumsy as he pretended. He had an immaculate sort of grace when he desired to show it off, and if he had absolutely no concept of defense, Kurogane wasn't sure that it for lack of learning it.

It seemed that some of this pristine white came from that: Fye was burning, intensely, far too intensely, like a star ready to destroy itself. At the same time, he was cold as the snow fields of the home he refused to speak of. The glare of starfire against the snow was enough to blind most: it merely intrigued Kurogane to look deeper. If there was a way past the fire and the ice... surely he could find it. Fye could not always be so carefully guarded. So the ninja began to watch very carefully for a crack, an opening to exploit.

Irony reigned supreme: his opportunity came deep into a frozen night. The starlight glinted off of the snow. The children had gone to bed already, but Fye lingered in the small kitchen of the little cottage they were renting. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, but he was not sloppy enough to let the smile drop from his lips as he stirred two, then a third and fourth, spoonfuls of sugar into his tea. Kurogane sipped his thankfully unsweetened and blissfully hot cup and studied Fye as he moved.

The moment the sugar contained tipped and rolled, headed for the floor, Kurogane was on his feet. He wasn't fast enough to catch it: he wasn't sure that he had been, he would have. Fye turned, looked stricken for a second as the ceramic shattered with a resounding crash. The kitchen was full of heavy silence for a second before Fye flashed a fake smile at Kurogane but something in the wizard's eyes was more than a little off.

He knelt to pick it up, chattering away. Kurogane didn't listen, but knelt to help. A moment later the wizard yelped, hissed softly, and looked up at Kurogane with a little shrug.

"I'm so clumsy, aren't I, Kuro-puu?" he said with that usual grin. Kurogane found he hated that grin, and the sudden temper that flushed through him wasn't because of the stupid girly nickname. He gritted his teeth and caught the wizard's wrist before he could pull away. Kurogane twisted it a little to still protests and to get a better look at the welling blood, but the wizard submitted almost too quickly. Kurogane carefully picked the sharp shard of ceramic out of the wizard's finger and stood, grabbing a cloth napkin from the counter to still the blood. It wasn't much of an injury, but it was the sort that happened far too frequently to Fye.

"Daddy is worried about me! I knew that Big Doggy cared!" Fye exclaimed, but Kurogane turned scarlet eyes on him and tightened his grip on the man's wrist just a little.

"Stop it."

"Stop what, Kuro-chan?"

"Fucking around. Pretending. Burning yourself out." Kurogane hissed. Later, the ninja couldn't be sure how Fye freed his wrist, but he did, and he was already walking away, waving his other hand in the air nonchalantly as he did.

"Daddy is acting strangely, perhaps he should go to sleep and stop drinking his tea without sugar!" And the wizard, along with the opportunity to get some answers, was gone. Kurogane shook his head, and finished cleaning up the broken crockery himself. He left his tea, and Fye's which remained untouched, and went to bed. But laying in bed, he couldn't help but think of dying starlight on the snow.


End file.
